This little essay is meant primarily for
those church-going folk of the Pentecostal ilk; however, if you consider
yourself to be a believer who enjoys a somewhat spontaneous church service and
thinks that God can actually take an active, personal interest in your
wellbeing, you’re welcome to read on. It is a description of a recent church
service I had the privilege to attend along with a few personal observations about
what it tells me about the church in general and the direction it is going.

The Pentecostal faith in general is
blessed with pastors and evangelists who are dedicated, passionate, and truly
concerned about the souls with whom they come in contact.Their messages to the various congregations
are usually intense, uplifting, and designed to help their followers walk
the straight and narrow in their quest for salvation.Services are usually concluded with the
congregation feeling encouraged, blessed, and forgiven.Occasionally, services end differently…not
badly, just differently.It was just such an evening service not too many
days ago.The minister, an evangelist,
stepped to the pulpit and delivered a soul searching message to the
listeners.This time however, at the end
of his message there was not the usual loud praising and shouting accompanied
by the obligatory cacophonic music.Rather, while preaching of dedication, commitment, and sacrifice, he broached
on the concept of “travailing” in one’s search for God’s will.“Travail” can be a noun or verb, but its
primary meaning is “very hard work.”The
Scriptures use the word “travail” when describing a woman giving birth or when
a soul is experiencing a period of extreme adversity.It also uses the same term when describing
the “travailing” church as it gives birth to new souls into the Kingdom.
As the evangelist begin to reach the end of his sermon, there was an
interesting process of events.Listeners
from all over the congregation began to walk to the front altar area to kneel
and pray.No music…no order or plea from
the pulpit to come forward…just an instantaneous response from those who wished
to draw closer to their God.Within a
few moments a strange sound began to rise from those in the altar area.It was not the sound of loud praise or joyous
shouting, but more of a low moaning or a loud groaning.It reached a crescendo that filled the large
auditorium.At this point, I have a confession…I did
not go to the front.I am anticipating
hip surgery in a few weeks and I was in such pain I could barely walk, so I was
sitting in the back row of the church, praying as fervently as I could.As I was sitting there, I looked up just as a
woman sat down next to me. This lady,
middle aged, has been a respected member of our church for a few years, but,
compared to us grizzled old veterans, is still relatively new (anything under
15 years is new to oldsters) to the church.I was
stunned at the question she asked me.“Brother Downing,” she asked intensely,
“what is happening?Are we in mourning
for something?Why are so many
crying?I have never been in a service
like this.”It was clear she did not
recognize the soul searching that many people were experiencing at the
moment.In a few words, I attempted to
explain to her that those who were weeping or appeared distraught were not
expressing grief, but were simply reaching out to God in a spirit of sacrifice
and deeper worship. After a little more explanation, she seemed relieved
and expressed again that she had never been in such a service.In talking with some of my fellow oldsters
later, the service and its impact was the topic of discussion, and the general
consensus was that this kind of service which calls a person to go beyond the
standard level of praise was occurring less and less, often with the unfortunate
result being we have church goers who have never progressed beyond the infancy
stage in their spiritual maturity. Why
are we experiencing fewer services and sermons which call the members to a
higher level of dedication and service?I think the reason is very clear, and, to
put it into a somewhat youthful vernacular…these types of services are not
“fun.”Think about these facts:The primary demographic target of any sort of
church outreach is the 18-25 year old age bracket.Most church music is written by 20-somethings
for 20-somethings.Most church services
are choreographed to be high energy, highly active, pulsating periods of
praise.And why not?The youth live for excitement and activity,
and the best way to draw them to church is to offer the same level of
energy.Besides, joyous praise is inherent
in a Christian’s walk with God anyway.It would be hard to experience “joy unspeakable” as described in the
Scriptures without some sort of active praise.This essay is not meant to denigrate nor minimize the need for enthusiastic
praise in any way.The song says it
clearly, “When I think of the goodness of Jesus and all He has done for me, my
soul cries out ‘hallelujah!’ Praise God for saving me!”A sinner saved by the grace of God cannot
help but praise.But the service which calls us to offer sacrifice,
travail, or greater spiritual dedication does not cause us to shout, dance,
scream, yell, or praise, and therein lies the problem.A call to sacrifice is not a popular sermon
for a minister or a congregation because it does not appeal to our normal human quest for enjoyment.It is not popular
because it requires both minister and member to go beyond praise and into the
realm of worship, and the process of worship
goes far beyond what we refer to as praise. The words "praise" and "worship" are NOT
synonymous nor interchangeable.A recent Pentecostal
Herald magazine had as its primary subject the need for praise and worship in
our churches, and I was astounded to discover that in most of the articles the
writers didn’t have the foggiest idea that there was any difference in the two terms. In the issue, writers emphasized the need for worship while
quoting scriptures which discussed praise and vice versa.And yet the two concepts are worlds apart.Praise is the enthusiastic recognition of
God’s blessings and is evidenced in practically every book in the Bible.Psalm 150:6“Praise Him with the psaltry…harp…timbrel…dance…stringed
instruments…organ…loud cymbols.Let
everything that has breath praise the Lord!”It’s hard to praise quietly.Worship involves an active dedication to
God.It is not a measurement of decibels
but a measurement of your actions.I
Chronicles 16:29,“Worship the Lord in
the beauty of holiness.” Psalm 95:6,“Oh come, let us worship and bow down.Let us kneel.”Matthew 2:11,“And when they were come into the house,
they…fell down and worshipped him.”Every
instance of worship mentioned in the Bible involved some combination of altar,
bowing, and dedication.It was a
reverential act of commitment.Worship
is much more intense, personal, and introspective, and occurs only when we have
gone beyond the level of simple praise.It is through the communion of worship that we both gain strength to
face adversity and also truly communicate with our God.Praise alone will not sustain a soul bent on
being faithful to God.In Ecclesiastes 3:1, the preacher
eloquently tells us, “To everything there is a season and a time to every
purpose under the heaven.”He lists a
litany of events which each of us faces during our human existence on this earth.Being careful not to add to the scriptures, I
would like to offer this also:There is
a time to praise and a time to worship.We need both.

Purpose of this Blog

This blog is a narrative of my experiences over the last six decades, peppered occasionally with observations and opinions of no particular merit, except that they will be from my perspective with no intent to change, offend, nor harm anyone.

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